How Successful Etsy Sellers Use All 13 Tags With Real Examples

Every Etsy listing gets 13 tags, each up to 20 characters. Tags help Etsy match your listing to what shoppers type. Sellers who use all 13, with varied phrases, give themselves many more chances to appear in search.

The rules

• Up to 13 tags per listing.
• Each tag can be up to 20 characters, including spaces.
• Multi-word phrases are allowed and usually work better than single words.
• Your category and attributes, such as color, also help Etsy match searches, so you don't need to spend tags repeating them.

A worked example

Here's one way to fill the tags for a handmade speckled ceramic mug. Each tag covers a different way a shopper might search:

1. What it is: handmade mug, ceramic coffee mug, stoneware cup, pottery mug
2. Style: speckled mug, minimalist mug, rustic kitchen decor
3. How it's made: wheel thrown mug
4. Use: large tea mug
5. Gifts and occasions: coffee lover gift, housewarming gift, mothers day gift
6. Feel: artisan mug

That's 13 tags, each under 20 characters, mixing product type, style, method, use and occasion.

Study what top sellers do

1. Search Etsy for your product and open the best-selling listings.
2. Etsy Keyword Extractor collects the tag links shown on a listing page, so you can copy them all or download them as a spreadsheet file.
3. Note phrases that appear across several successful listings.
4. Keep the ones that truly describe your product, and add your own unique angles.

The Etsy tags extractor turns a title or keyword list into up to 13 clean tags that fit the length limit. See learning from bestselling listings.

Mistakes that waste tags

• Leaving tags empty.
• Using the same word in many tags with no new meaning.
• Tags that don't describe the item, which can bring clicks but no sales.
• Only single words, when shoppers usually type phrases.

Tags and titles

Put your most important phrase near the start of your title, and use tags for the many other ways people search. See tags vs titles.

Review and adjust

Etsy's shop stats show which searches bring visits. Every month or two, replace tags that bring nothing with new phrases to test. See fixing tags that get no traffic.